The Hunter Maiden. Ethel Johnston Phelps

      Not knowing what else to do, Mulha followed the Imbula along the trail. When they approached the kraal, Mulha cried, “Now give me back my clothes!”

      Not only did the Imbula refuse, but she walked in through the gate of the kraal with great assurance and asked for her married sister. The sister welcomed the false Mulha warmly.

      “What shall we do with this strange creature with you?” asked the married sister, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

      “Put her away in an old hut; she can eat with the dogs,” said the Imbula. “It’s all she’s fit for.”

      So Mulha, whom her parents had thought the prettiest maiden in Swaziland, was sent to a wretched hut to live with a poor old woman. The Imbula, seemingly a pretty maiden, was made much of by the people in the village. The false Mulha had just one problem: all Imbulas have tails, as Inzimus do, and this she could not get rid of. She had managed to wind hers around and around her waist, where it was hidden by her clothing. Each day she feared it would be discovered, but for a time all went well for the Imbula.

      Meanwhile, the real Mulha lived as an outcast in the hut of the old woman. But she did not waste time crying over the cruel revenge taken by the Inzimu and the Imbula. She quickly discovered that the ugly, hairy pelt she wore gave her some magic power; she could obtain choice food simply by commanding it. So, with the old woman sworn to secrecy, the two ate well and lived quietly together in comfort.

      Almost every day, Mulha went down early to a deserted part of the river to bathe. As soon as she entered the water, the hairy skin floated away, and she became her own self. She swam happily about for a while, but as she left the water, the skin attached itself to her again, and she became the strange creature as before.

      One day the married sister went down to the river to wash some clothes. Catching sight of the strange, hairy woman at the water’s edge, she hid herself and watched. What she saw astonished her. She hurried home at once to consult the chief’s aging sister, who was well known for her wisdom.

      The next time the creature went to bathe, the two women hid near the riverbank. They saw the ugly pelt float away while Mulha swam, and reattach itself when she left the water.

      The two women confronted Mulha, demanding an explanation. She told them she was the real Mulha, and explained how she had been tricked by the Imbula.

      “If you really are Mulha and the other is not, surely you can prove it!” said the married sister. But it was clear she was not certain in her mind that this was her sister, and Mulha was hurt.

      “Why bother with me?” said Mulha. “You took the Imbula in as your sister; now you can keep her! I have everything I want. Only more trouble will come to me if I accuse the Imbula.”

      “The girl is right,” said the chief’s sister. “The Imbula still has power to do her harm. She may take further revenge because Mulha outwitted her brother, the Inzimu. Come away now,” said she to the married sister. “We will consult with my brother, the chief, and devise a plan. For the true Imbula must be discovered and killed if Mulha is to be saved.”

      A few days later a big hole was dug in the middle of the kraal. In it were placed food and a large calabash filled with fresh milk. Each woman in the kraal was commanded to walk all around the hole by herself.

      At last came the turn of the Imbula. She begged to be excused. “I am too shy a maiden to walk about before all the people,” said she in a tiny, sweet voice. This did not help her at all.

      The chief and his sister forced her to begin the walk around the hole. At the sight of the fresh white milk, her Imbula nature could not be controlled. Of its own accord, her tail uncoiled and slithered down into the hole to suck up the milk—for no Inzimu or Imbula can control its tail when milk is on the ground! The chief’s sister had known this when she devised the trap.

      With a shriek of rage at her unmasking, the Imbula seized a nearby child and leaped toward the gate. But the hunters were waiting with spears ready, and she was slain. The moment the Imbula was killed, Mulha regained her own true form.

      After that, Mulha lived peacefully with her sister’s family. Eventually she married the chief’s youngest son. The one hundred cows paid to Mulha’s father as the bride price made it possible for her family to live in great comfort.

      And that was how Mulha outwitted the ogre Inzimu and, with the help of the chief’s sister, escaped the Imbula’s revenge.

      “Mulha” is drawn from Fairy Tales from South Africa (1910), written by E. J. BOURHILL and J. B. DRAKE. Versions of this tale have been compared to the story of “Little Red Riding Hood.”

      

      Long ago, among the Zuni people in the Southwest, there lived a young maiden. She lived alone with her aged parents in their pueblo. Her two brothers had been killed in warfare, and it was her responsibility to supply the family with food and firewood.

      The little family lived very simply. During the summer, when the girl grew beans, pumpkins, squash, melons, and corn in their garden, they had enough to eat. But when cold weather came, there were only dried beans and corn to feed the family.

      The Zuni people did not graze sheep and cattle in those days; therefore to keep hunger at bay through the winter, they had to hunt game. Her brothers’ stone axes and rabbit sticks for hunting hung on the walls unused—for it was the custom that only men could hunt, and her father had grown too old and feeble for hunting.

      One year the cold weather set in early and the first snow had fallen. Now was the time the girl must gather brush and firewood to store on the roof of their house.

      “We have little to eat,” she said to herself, “but at least we will be warm.”

      As she worked, she watched the young men of the tribe go forth with their rabbit sticks and stone axes. Later in the day, she saw them return to the village with strings of rabbits.

      “If I were a boy,” she thought, “I could hunt rabbits, and my parents would have meat to nourish themselves.” She pondered this, saying to herself, “There is no reason why I can’t hunt rabbits. When I was a child, my brothers often took me with them on the hunt.”

      So that evening, as the girl sat by the fire with her parents, she told them she intended to hunt for rabbits the next day.

      “It will not be hard to track rabbits in the new snow,” she said. “The young men who went out this morning all returned with strings of rabbits, but we have nothing to barter for meat. The rabbit sticks and axes of my brothers are on the wall. Why should I not use them? Must we go hungry again this winter?”

      Her mother shook her head. “No, no! You will be too cold. You will lose your way in the mountains.”

      “It would be too dangerous,” said her father. “It is better to live with hunger. Hunting is not women’s work.”

      But at last, seeing that the girl was determined to go, the old father said, “Very well! If we cannot persuade you against it, I will see what I can do to help you.”

      He hobbled into the other room and found some old furred deerskins. These he moistened, softened, and cut into long stockings that he sewed up with sinew and the fiber of the yucca leaf. Then he selected for her a number of rabbit sticks and a fine stone ax.

      Her mother prepared lunch for the next day, little baked cornmeal cakes flavored with